Throughout the years of television broadcasting, game shows have been popular programs employed by all of the competing stations and networks in order to attract viewers. Many of these game shows have become very popular with the viewing audience and have enjoyed many years of continuous, regular broadcasting.
Over the years, many new game shows have been created in an attempt to achieve the level of success that has been attained by popular shows. In order to entice and maintain a large audience base, the new shows have employed a wide variety of formats and themes. However, in spite of the extraordinary effort that has been expended in developing new popular game shows and game show formats, no program has been able to attain a high level of direct, real interaction between the game show itself and the home viewing audience.
In particular, viewers are only able to participate in the game show action amongst themselves, without being able to share in the prize awards given to the on-camera participants. As a result, viewers have become bored and ultimately stop watching these shows.
In addition to the prior art failure to directly involve the home viewing audience in immediate, timely, interactive participation in the game show itself, prior art systems and game shows have also failed to achieve a format wherein the home audience is able to share in a prize award in a manner which is convenient and completely uncontrolled by the producers of the game show. In general, any prior art attempts to involve the home viewing audience have required the home viewers to mail in postcards which are then randomly selected to potentially allow one individual to win a prize award.
Such participation has failed to capture the interest of most viewers, since the selection of any home viewer participant is completely at the control of the game show producers. In addition, the selection of one participant from the vast number of submissions received makes the likelihood of being selected extremely remote.
In addition to these prior art game show failures with the home viewer, prior art game shows have also failed to directly involve the studio audience in a manner which would allow the studio audience, in its entirety, to actively participate in the game show by having an equal chance of winning prize awards. At best, prior art game shows have selected participants from the audience, who become the on-camera game participants. However, once the participants have been selected, the remaining studio audience become observers and are unable to participate in winning any prize awards.
Therefore, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a game show system which allows home viewers to actively participate in predicting a future outcome of a game show and sharing a prize award, if correct.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a game show system having the characteristic features described above wherein on-camera participants, the studio audience, and the home viewing audience all participate in pre-selecting potential winning outcomes, with any individual properly predicting the winning outcome being awarded a prize.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a game show system having the characteristic features described above wherein the home audience is capable of directly, interactively participating in the actual game, thereby enhancing audience interest and excitement.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a game show system having the characteristic features described above wherein the future, prize-determining event is completely random and is out of the control of the game show producers.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an interactive communication system whereby individuals are able to independently select at least one possible outcome of a future event and participate in winning a prize award if their prediction is accurate by employing electronic communication, without leaving their home.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a game show system having the characteristic features described above which employs the interactive communication system described above to allow home viewers to participate in the televised game using their own home telephones.
Other and more specific objects will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.